


401. hysteria

by piggy09



Series: The Sestre Daily Drabble Project [9]
Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Gen, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-09
Updated: 2016-07-09
Packaged: 2018-07-22 10:53:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7433957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/piggy09/pseuds/piggy09
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In Rachel Duncan’s shower, Sarah buries her face in Helena’s hair and weeps.</p>
            </blockquote>





	401. hysteria

**Author's Note:**

> [warning: brief torture mention]

In Rachel Duncan’s shower, Sarah buries her face in Helena’s hair and weeps. Can’t stop crying. She’s shaking, a little, maybe because of the zip ties and maybe because of Helena’s weight wrapped around her; the way Helena smells, like snow and sweat. That is: salt. Cold water.

Helena’s alive. Sarah shot Helena, and here she is: alive. Alive alive alive. Sarah can’t wrap her head around it. Her mind jumps towards the thought and jumps away again; it won’t stay still, won’t let her latch onto it.

She spent so long telling herself Helena was dead. That it was better like this – that Helena would have hurt people, hurt _her_. She had to be put down. It had to end like that. She’d made it into a story, even: once upon a time there was a dragon. Sarah had stood in front of the mirror, pressed her finger to her split lip, and told herself she was a knight.

Helena hadn’t been a dragon, though, on the ground. She’d just been a girl. A small scared girl, all fragile bones and startled eyes.

And now she’s here. In Sarah’s brain she had been dragon and princess both and now she isn’t a symbol of Sarah’s badness, or Sarah’s softness. She’s breathing through her mouth. Sarah can’t breathe through the cloud of her hair. She’s alive, and she saved Sarah’s life.

And she won’t let go.

“I can’t breathe,” Sarah says weakly, and Helena makes a sort of disgruntled hum. She shifts. Does not let go.

Sarah chokes out a couple more sobs, winding down from that horrible hysteria-height, and Helena’s arms slowly – slowly – unwrap from her ribs. And then they’re separate again.

Helena takes a step back and watches her, eyes wide and utterly blank. Sarah sobs a few more times, awful wracking coughs. She watches Helena. Doesn’t know what else to do.

“You saved my life,” she says, because that seems like a place to start.

“Yes,” says Helena. Like her words have dried up, after that big grand speech: _don’t send me back. I think they took something from inside of me_ —

“You saved me,” Sarah says.

“You’re bleeding,” Helena whispers, and when she reaches her bloody hand towards Sarah’s scalp Sarah flinches, breath turning into a gunshot-sound.

Helena’s hand freezes. Maybe she thought the same metaphor.

“Please,” Sarah says, and has to pause while her breathing leaps and shudders. “Helena. Cut me down.”

Helena looks at her, sadly, and does. She has to stand on tip-toe to reach Sarah’s wrists; Sarah’s eyes are level with her nose, so she can see all the little freckles that dot Helena’s skin. A person. Not a dragon. A person with fresh blood on her forehead, rolling all the way down.

The world is silent except for the sound of their breathing and the jagged sawing noise of the knife. The second the restraints snap Sarah crumples to the ground. She hadn’t planned on it. But apparently her legs can’t hold her anymore.

Helena steps back again and crouches down in front of her. She’s wearing a _wedding_ dress. And cowboy boots. Sarah sits with her knees folded up in front of her and crosses her arms in front of her chest and it’s not enough because part of her still wants Helena to go back to holding her and Helena is wearing fucking _cowboy boots_ and Sarah starts laughing. The sound’s about the same as her crying was. That is to say: hysterical.

“Oh, Sarah,” Helena sighs, and Sarah slits open her eye to watch Helena’s blurry hand clench on her blurry knee. She’s crying again. Shit.

Then the vague white blur of Helena leaves her sight, the fabric of her skirt rustling, and Sarah buries her head in her knees and cries. Helena was dead. Now she’s here. Sarah could have been completely cut open by Daniel. Now Daniel is dead. Helena killed Daniel. Helena is here, and she came only and entirely to save Sarah’s life.

A cold wet cloth presses up against the skin of Sarah’s neck and Sarah screams, once, low in her throat. “Shh,” says Helena. And again: “shh, Sarah.”

Sarah screws her eyes tight shut and tilts her neck a little bit, so Helena can reach the skin behind her ear. Helena blots it carefully with the wet – towel, or something, Rachel Duncan’s hand towel, one she’s probably wiped her hands on, Sarah is laughing again because this is hysterically unreal. Hysterically.

“Where did you go,” she says weakly.

Helena doesn’t answer. Her hand is very gentle, on the back of Sarah’s neck. “They took me back,” she says quietly. “They said I was a miracle.” She doesn’t say anything else.

 _You are_ , Sarah thinks, but the words are too raw and honest to say out loud.

“Don’t go,” she says instead. Equally honest, but not quite as painful – like a healing wound, and not a fresh one.

“I won’t,” Helena says, after a long pause. “I want to stay. With you.”

Sarah unfolds an arm from around her knee, fumbles desperately and clasps Helena’s hand in her own. It’s the one that isn’t holding the wet cloth. It’s the one that was holding, briefly, the knife. Blood everywhere. Sarah: aching.

The fabric of the dress rustles and then Helena’s weight leans up against her side. Somehow she’s managed to make the shower fit her too, so she can sit next to Sarah and lean up against her. Not choke her, or hug her, or make huge desperate promises. Just sit there and breathe, slow. Sarah’s breathing slows to follow hers; it feels like she’s been doing this her entire life, like a song she’d just forgotten the words to.

“I missed you,” she says, hollowly. “Shit. That’s awful to say, isn’t it. But I did.”

Helena’s silent again. Then: “I missed you too.” Her head nestles, slow, slow, onto Sarah’s bloodless shoulder. Sarah presses her own head down on top of it. Between them, Helena’s hand finds her own fingers and they twine together. Connected.

 _I can move_ , Sarah thinks of saying, but she can’t yet. There is something in Helena’s wordless presence that says that she knows this, and it’s alright, and she’ll wait here as long as Sarah needs before they go. And a part of Sarah loves her, for that. It’s terrifying. Sitting here and holding Helena’s hand, and loving her, and waiting for the strength to stand back up and face the world outside of here.

It’s terrifying.

Sarah lets herself have it anyways.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Please kudos + comment if you enjoyed! :)


End file.
